


about the plan for lilac time

by friendly_ficus



Series: from a much outdated style [9]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU where they're basically gods, Gen, Mild Gore, plot? in THIS fanfic?, vague nods to canon and even vaguer nods to d&d
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25799941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendly_ficus/pseuds/friendly_ficus
Summary: The Feywild is less about what was and more about what will be. It will attempt to confuse those things.Or: A knife is a tool. Do what you will with it.
Series: from a much outdated style [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/907551
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	1. about things today / and fallen leaves

**Author's Note:**

> next chapter in this series! in this house we hate saundor criticalrole :)  
> this fic probably won't make sense without the rest of them, but if you wanna start here who am i to stop you lol

The Feywild hums in Vex’s ears.

They stand together in a clearing, one clump of people among what could be thousands of acres of life, skittering and chattering creatures and the low, unstoppable sense of change. Wolf-howls and the sound of water dripping in a cave and the creak of branches, yes, the Feywild hums in Vex’s ears.

She feels... more, here. She brings a hand to her necklace and lets Trinket out, scratches between his ears the way he likes it. He makes a questioning grumble, no doubt picking up on the tension shivering through her limbs, and she hums in response.

When Pike speaks up, Vex turns to look at her with glowing eyes, a half-step away from throwing herself into the wind and the rivers and the forest, Trinket at her back. Something in her, an instinct long-ignored, cries out at her to run for the sake of running, climb for the sake of climbing, walk every inch of this land and make its denizens know her.

“Hey,” the cleric says, soft under the chatter of the rest of their group, the hum of the forest in Vex’s bones. “Hey. Are you okay?”

Behind her, Vex registers a slumped Vax, radiating something like grief. She can almost see it wisping in the air around him and it makes her feet itch to dart away, but the thoughts come unstuck in her head even as she thinks them. She wants—there’s a cave four miles to the east, where giant salamanders are sleeping in an underground pool; there’s a spire to the north where a bird of prey is diving, now, to catch something with a fast-beating heart; somewhere there is something creeping across the trees and through the air, a sickness, a rot, and she wants—

**“Vex,”** Pike says, impossible dawn light wreathing her form.  **“Vex, come back.”**

And when she takes a breath, a clean breeze blows through her hair. The hum in her ears quiets, not gone entirely but muffled, and Trinket whines. Vex blinks. Vex blinks. 

Pike is holding her hand, the one not buried in Trinket’s fur. Her gauntlet is a promise, where it sits against Vex’s skin, but what that promise is she can’t be certain.

“Hey,” Pike smiles. “You with us?”

“Yes. Yes, I,” a huge moth flutters past them, wings like moonlight, but Vex steels herself and tears her eyes away from it. “I’m with you.”

“Good to hear,” Scanlan adds, coming up to bracket her other side. “We’re looking for your knife, after all. Wouldn’t be much use without you.”

The reminder is less like a cut and more like a bruise—it sparks with pain for a moment but the ache dulls, diffuses. It clears the rest of the cobwebs from her mind, shoves all the unpleasantness back to the forefront.

Trinket growls under her hand, feeling her tense once more, but Vex knows she has to be sharp, now, even if sharp means scared. 

“My knife,” she affirms, tastes rot in the back of her mouth. But it is hers, it is hers, it is hers—she wants it back.

“Where should we go, then?” Percy calls from where he’s stood with Keyleth and Grog, something eager in his eyes. He’s... there’s joy, here, for him. Vex has never seen him joyful before.

She shuts her eyes, **_listens,_ ** feels for the buzzing of it. In her mind a path unfurls like a twilight-tinged vine, twisting across the Feywild until it runs right smack into a barrier of some kind. Not a wall; something... something hungry. She yanks back and her eyes fly open, tries to snatch her hands away. Pike’s grip is gentle, but she doesn’t let go.

A moment passes. Keyleth says something Vex doesn’t quite catch, drawing closer. They all have, a little bit. Grog is next to Trinket, a bulwark against any possible threats to the left of the group. Scanlan’s to her right, Pike in front, and Vax is a few steps away, behind. The breeze shifts, a trace of gunsmoke—Percy is next to Vax, then.

“West,” Vex says, after her heart stops beating quite so fast. “To the west, I think. I can’t find it exactly, but it’s a start.”

With nods all around, they set off.

The Feywild hums in Vex’s ears, a chorus of sounds that can’t quite be confused for music, though Scanlan  _ is  _ tapping his fingers as they walk. A bird chirps. A flower sighs. The wind shifts again, blowing into their faces, and Vex realizes she’s smelling decay for true this time, not caught up in the memory of it.

_ Lovely,  _ a voice croons, nearly inaudible under the breeze.  _ Lovely, sweet, come to me. Come home to me. _

“Leave me,” she mutters, ignoring the shift in Keylet’s footsteps behind her. “I want none of you.”

From the trees all around them, every bird takes flight. Percy gives a shocked exclamation, the whole group drawing closer together, but Vex knows what startled them. Soundless, carried on currents of air and time and fury, a scream has joined the Feywild’s hum. 

When the first bolt whistles through the air, going right for her chest, it’s nearly expected. Vex dodges behind a tree, shouts a warning—Fenthras comes to her hands before the crossbow bolt thuds into the trunk.

She catches a glimpse of it, slick and dripping with something like tar, before they all explode into motion.

\---

His sister dives behind a tree and Vax throws himself forward, following the trajectory of the shot. The shadows of the forest grow deep, stretch long enough to run together. He is tetherless, nearly unraveled, and when he finds the spindly form crouched in a shrub he puts a dagger through its throat without pause. 

A good distance behind him, he can hear the battle start. But his mind is elsewhere, caught up in the shadow of pain across his sister’s face in Ioun’s library, the blankness in her eyes years ago, when he and Trinket found her in that tree.

So when he puts the dagger through skin and sinew, and odd, dark blood spills forth, he doesn’t let go. Or, well. He doesn’t let go of the dagger.

Vax shuts his eyes, breathes,  **_reaches._ **

When he opens them again the world is cast in ghostly gray, nothing of the purple sky and mottled greens of the forest around him. His fingers  _ burn,  _ old scar reigniting, but he has to see. He has to know. 

The figure emerges from the trunk of a tree, swaying and strange. It’s difficult to articulate why—the limbs are too long, maybe, or the robes he doesn’t recognize. It hums, chanting words he can’t understand. They go fuzzy in his ears, make him dizzy despite the fact that this isn’t happening now. Or that’s the pain, maybe—his hand burns, there is no raven to shock him into letting go. 

The stranger walks with rhythmic steps, each exactly the same length as the last. In the wake of it, ferns curl lower, drooping. A young tree groans, trunk nearly liquefying in a matter of seconds as it is reduced to little more than a puddle of sludge. Then the walking stops. The chanting stops. The figure turns in the direction of his sister. One long hand points in her direction before there’s a  _ crack  _ that echoes in Vax’s ears.

One hand is pointing in Vex’s direction. The other has buried itself in this creature’s chest, hauling its very bones out. It’s awful, in an alien way, because there’s no hesitation in the movement even though bones  _ shouldn’t be on the outside.  _ But in one spindly hand, part of a ribcage twists and morphs, slick with dark blood, into a crossbow. Vax feels ill—again, maybe that’s the pain, but it’s likely this as well. This is... he is unsettled. This is wrong, nothing should  _ be  _ this.

One bolt is fired and then Vax sees a shadow barrel through the trees, vengeful and all devouring, and then his dagger is buried to the hilt through this strange neck. 

One hand now entirely numb (and isn’t  _ that  _ a bad sign), Vax takes another deep breath. One more. One more. 

When he opens his eyes again, the sounds of battle have stopped and his sister is shouting his name.

“—where  _ are  _ you,” she’s calling, something terrible and afraid in her voice. “Vax—”

He lets out his first exhale, hard enough for the leaves in front of him to rustle. Her voice cuts off and he can hear her moving carelessly through the underbrush, racing to his side. When she comes out through the trees there’s blood in her hair, a small cut on her forehead. He moves toward her, worried. She meets his eyes, furious. 

“Where did you  _ go?”  _ she snarls. “You were  _ gone,  _ what  _ happened?” _

There’s a sickening  _ plop  _ behind him, as the creature’s head rolls free. It’s melting, almost, filling the air with the thick smell of dead plants.

“You ran right at it,” she continues, fire in her eyes. “You ran right at it and you were  _ gone.” _

“What happened?” he asks, reaching out to examine the cut. She twitches away from him, eyes going wide at the sight of his hand. The burn is bad, it’s. It’s not a pleasant sight.

“More came,” she says, staring at his fingers. “Pike!”

“It’s fine—”

“Like fuck it’s fine. Pike! Come and look at this.” There’s something frantic in the air around her, buzzing between the two of them. “I can’t believe you just ran ahead like that, whatever that was could’ve killed you, you were  _ gone—”  _

“It was shooting at you, and if it has to be one of us getting killed I choose me every time.”

(This is what it means, when Vax tries to say  _ I love you.  _ This is the only kind of devotion he knows how to pledge.)

Vex reels back, alarmed for a moment before she rallies, anger returning. But it’s different, not irritation, not fear. Her next sentence has the weight of years behind it: “Listen to me, Vax. Don’t ever say that again.” 

“I just mean—”

“Don’t ever say that again. Do not die for me.” 

A cold wind rustles the trees all around them, brings the sound of the rest of their companions’ approach. There’s something very brittle in his sister’s eyes.

“What would you have me die for, then?” he asks, going for a joke. It doesn’t land; he can feel his hand start shaking, feeling pricking through his fingers. “You were hurt, all these years, and I never knew. What would you have me die for?”

“That’s mine to carry,” Vex says, shaking her head, “it’s  _ mine,  _ and I won’t have you throw yourself away. Fuck it all, whatever you’re tying yourself in knots about, fuck it all. You’re my brother.”

Pike walks out of the dark, sure as anything, already reaching for his injured hand. The shadows don’t seem to touch her.

“Vax,” his sister says, putting a hand on his shoulder, grounding. “Whatever happens, I want you to  _ live.” _

\---

Vex is quiet that night at the campfire. Well, it might be night—they’re tired, despite the unchanging light of the sky, and they stop under a tree with leaves as big as Scanlan. The shadows it casts are deep and cool; though that could be Vax’s influence, he supposes. The guy sure is down, even after Pikey fixed his hand up.

And hadn’t that been a sight, like it is every time—gleaming and opalescent, light curling in her hands like liquid metal. She’d winced when it was done, one hand coming up to tap against her breastplate. It had made him realize that, in the rush of the dragon and the weight of Vex’s words, they hadn’t looked for anything on unhealing scars. It had made him worry, made him think of Ioun’s pained sighs. 

_ After we’re done,  _ he promises himself again,  _ we’ll figure something out.  _

“Something’s not right,” Grog rumbles, and everyone makes various affirming sounds. All eight of them.

Scanlan has his sword at the interloper’s throat before he even followed the train of thought all the way through; his eyes want to skip over the other figure sitting by the fire, want to slide away and let him be. Want to attribute the riot of red hair to Keyleth, even though she’s across from him.

“Stop it,” he says, as a large moth flutters by. “Before I  _ make you  _ stop it.”

“You can try,” a smooth voice offers, teasing. “You’ll find I’m rather—”

Scanlan hums a sharp, discordant sound. The illusion shatters.

There is, sitting beside him at the fire, a man with wild red hair and sharp green eyes. His ears are long, curling up into his hair, and he’s dressed in a cloak that would be best described as  _ verdant green,  _ if Scanlan had to be specific.

When his spell breaks, he chuckles. “That’s a new way of doing it, I suppose. Not one I’ve seen before, Scanlan Shorthalt.”

(A ghost takes the stage in a part of the Feywild that no one likes to talk about; instruments stir without living hands. For all that it’s dead, the theatre is alive.)

“Artagan?” Vex says, surprised. 

“You know ‘im?” Grog asks, not yet setting his axe down. The man’s a quickdraw, Scanlan’s always said. Will say, in the story he tells. It’d be just the thing to annoy Percy.

“We’re... well, yes. We know each other.” She’s looking at him with curiosity, now, tinged with wariness. 

Artagan puts a hand over his heart, feigns sorrow. “Such a cool reception,” he murmurs, and Vex raises an eyebrow.

“I’m not sure he  _ does  _ friends like we do,” she tells the rest of them. “He... he helped me once when I was in a dark moment.”

“We could restart this little encounter,” he offers, and everything about him grates against Scanlan just a little bit. When no one speaks, the man puffs himself up and starts in a pompous voice: “Well, well, well, Vex’ahlia of Shademurk, fancy seeing you here. Thought you’d left this place behind you.”

(The marble floor of the Emperor’s Palace is cracked through, the very stone stained with ichor. With gold. The breeze shifts once more in the Feywild, brings a prey-scent to a hunting wolf.)

“I said I would return, darling.”

Scanlan can almost pick up on whatever words are going unspoken; he’s a good guesser, and there’s something about titles, with Vex. Vex Dragonslayer, Vex’ahlia of Shademurk, there’s something there. A thread running through her. But now isn’t the time to get into that.

Artagan’s eyes are sharp and green and a step sideways from living when he nods. “So you did.”

The campfire crackles, once, and Scanlan can feel the moment thrumming in the air. They are a breath from violence, all of them on edge from the twisting paths and the foes only he recognized. If this stranger pushes, even a little. If he pushes.

Artagan sighs, flops down on his back like he’s looking for the stars. The leaves above them are far too thick to see any sliver of the sky.

“I’ve seen your steps,” he says, voice floating all around them. It’s clear he’s speaking only to Vex, though. “All over the Feywild, one at a time. Never so many as this.”

“Yes, well,” and her tone is enough to make Scanlan sheath his sword. “I’m looking for something, this time.”

“Why?”

“Is that important?”

“It is to  _ you.” _

Keyleth catches Scanlan’s gaze across the fire, tilts her head in Artagan’s direction. Scanlan looks to Vex, then back to Keyleth.  _ Follow her lead,  _ as clear as he can say it. Keyleth nods.

“I don’t think it is to  _ you,  _ though,” Vex says. “So why are you here?”

Artagan sits up. “Have you thought about my question?”

“Which one?”

It’s fast, their conversation. She’s countering quick as she can, keeping his attention on her. Even the way she’s sitting has changed a little, the angle of her shoulders partially blocking Percy from view. Scanlan knows from her voice that this isn’t an enemy—but it doesn’t seem like he’s a friend, either. 

_ “Why not be both?”  _ Artagan says, and his voice comes out in two tones, one asking the question and one remembering it.

“I’ve been a bit busy, actually,” she says, shaking her head. 

“Think about it,” he says, and between one blink and the next, he’s gone.

“Well,” Percy offers, cleaning his glasses. “He was... interesting, I suppose.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title for this fic comes from the Nick Drake song "River Man". i know this is a little bit of an abrupt end for this chapter, but i had it finished tonight and figured why not post it, you know?  
> thanks for picking this fic up! leave a comment and let me know what you think, i really treasure them! :)


	2. if he tells me all he knows / about the way his river flows

Hours after Artagan’s vanished—for a given value of  _ hours,  _ of course—Vex and Scanlan sit on watch under the huge tree. The others are sleeping, dreaming the strange dreams the Feywild brings. Scanlan can hear them, almost, at the edges of their companions’ breathing.

Vex has been quiet for a while, her bow across her lap and one hand buried in Trinket’s fur. Not the comfortable kind of quiet, either; the kind that prickles and stings. Scanlan’s familiar enough with it himself.

He takes a breath to tell a comforting lie, but the campfire crackles and the words die in his mouth. Vex doesn’t seem like she wants much comfort right now. Which, okay, he can do not-comforting just fine.

“Those things we fought,” he says, voice low, “back in the trees, when your brother disappeared...”

“What about them.” Vex’s hand stills in her bear’s fur, mindless little scritches stopping. 

In his sleep, Trinket lets out a  _ whuff. _

“I’ve met them before.” It’s not a confession, it doesn’t feel like it should be a confession, but the way she whips her head around to stare at him gives it more weight. “Twice.”

“Twice?” she asks, a little strangled.

“Twice. The first time, ha, they tried to kill me.” He smiles, pretends he doesn’t hear an echo of his daughter in the back of his mind. “But the second time,” he says, growing more serious, “they were going after Keyleth.”

“I...” she trails off.

“Vex’ahlia,  _ do you know who they are?” _

(There’s a humming in his bones, deeper than the not-music of the twilight around them, deeper than his fear for the wound in Pike’s chest, than his worry for Ioun. 

_ The Cult of the Knife is what they call themselves,  _ he tells his daughter, what feels like ages ago. And here they are, going for a knife. As much as his life has changed, Scanlan hasn’t started believing in coincidence.)

“When I was here,” she says carefully, “the man who has my knife, he taught me things. He said the lessons would make me strong.”

Scanlan doesn’t let the question go, holds onto it in case the Feywild tries to steal it from him. But he doesn’t interrupt.

“He could do so much and I was, I was very  _ new  _ to all of this. I wanted to learn.”

Scanlan waits. He can feel it building, some kind of truth or lie or  _ something.  _ The very air is leaning in to listen.

“He wanted my heart,” she says, eyes distant. “I didn’t ask if it was a literal kind of thing. He wasn’t a very literal sort of person. But I was selfish, I suppose, at least he said I was. I wouldn’t give it to him.”

“It’s not,” Scanlan clears his throat, keeps his voice down so he doesn’t  _ really  _ interrupt, “wanting to keep your organs in the right spot isn’t selfish.”

A smile flits across her face, before she’s back in that distant, serious mood. “He taught me to... sustain myself, I suppose, by depending on the sick parts of the forest. Made it so I didn’t need to eat.”

Scanlan tries to picture it, but all his mind can put together is a younger Vex, too-thin and hollowed out and streaked with muck and dead plant matter.  _ Scanlan  _ still has to eat. From what he’s seen, they  _ all  _ still need to eat. He wonders, not for the first time, just how different each of them really are.

“When we fought them, when Vax disappeared,” Vex says, “it felt like that. It’s a taste in your mouth, sort of, or like a sound—it’s difficult to describe. It’s like... the step after rot. It’s cold and slimy and disgusting, and it’s always waiting. Sometimes I think I feel it after nightmares, just here,” she touches the center of her chest. “I don’t know what it means.”

“Like an echo,” he offers. “Something reverberating in you.”

“Something awful, but yes. Sort of. I wonder...”

“The ones I ran into weren’t looking for me,” he says, and this  _ is  _ a confession. “I’m a good listener, you know. I listened around.”

She’s bracing herself, now, both hands wrapped around her bow in a white-knuckled grip.

“The Cult of the Knife,” Scanlan muses, casual, like it’ll make the words mean something less troubling. “They’re a pretty big mess, from what I’ve heard. But they care a lot about hearts. Enough to be looking for a specific one.”

“Just say it,” she whispers, something like fear in her face. Something like fury.

“I think, going out on a limb here, of course, that they’re looking for  _ you.  _ That they’re following  _ you,  _ or they think they are. Vex’ahlia,  _ do you know who they are?” _

(Miles away, a werewolf’s ears twitch. He  _ hmphs,  _ wakes the pack and starts following a trail. To the west, through a barrier of cold and hunger and doubt, an archfey seethes.)

“When I ran away, he screamed so loudly that I still hear it.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Of course it is,” Vex growls. Really growls, the words coming out a little rumbly and strange. “Of  _ course  _ it is. He can’t bear to let things go, of course he’s sent them looking for me. Of course he’s taught them lies, that’s what he  _ does.” _

Scanlan hums. Between his fingers, a muted flash of purple light and a half-composed melody twist. “I know a thing or two about lies. This guy doesn’t seem like the type to stop telling them.”

“I’m going to  _ make  _ him,” Vex says, as a breeze rustles around them.

Trinket blinks sleepy eyes, gives a terrific sneeze, and whatever tension they’ve been building breaks as she returns to the bear.

\---

They don’t run into any more of the weird tree guys for a while, but Grog doesn’t let his guard drop. Seems like you just  _ never know,  _ with this place. It fuckin’ sucks.

On their watch, he and Keyleth talked it over, decided where they’d walk and stuff, how best to keep the group together. Something about this place itches against his skin, makes him think that if one of them wanders off it’ll be hell getting them back. No more libraries, they’d agreed. Can’t have Percy going off and getting himself all frozen again. 

(Or Pike, going up to the top of the triangle thing and getting hit with whatever the fuck that was. She thinks he doesn’t see, but he’s always sorta looking out for everybody  _ all the time, _ so he doesn’t miss her wincing at the beginning and end of each day.)

So, it’s him on one side and Keyleth on the other, while Vex leads everybody along weird paths past weird plants and strange noises. The middle of the group is a kind of Pike-and-Scanlan-and-Vax-and-Percy clump, which is good, since it seems like Percy really would wander off and get himself messed up if they gave him the chance. Too curious. Fidgety. And it’s keeping Vax from giving in to whatever woe-is-me thing is going on and falling behind. Keyleth has to nudge him, sometimes. Keep him on his toes.

After they’ve been walking  _ forever,  _ there’s this kind of  _ woosh-growl-pshhhhhh  _ sound, and Grog figures out why they haven’t been running into any more of those weird tree guys. Turns out there’s a whole bunch of werewolves spread out on the banks of a whole bunch of rivers, catching the tree guys in their jaws and hurling them into the water before they can cross it.

_ Holy shit,  _ he thinks. “Holy shit,” he says.

One of the wolves lets out a barking laugh, and Grog whacks one of the tree guys with the flat of his axe, sending him fifteen feet through the air into the river. That’s where the fun starts, and it just  _ doesn’t stop.  _ No, seriously, the tree guys just keep coming, and Grog and the wolves just keep sending them down.

The others do a whole bunch of talking and planning and shit, but Grog is in the  _ zone,  _ Grog’s at the gap in the line before they know it’s gonna be there, every time. 

“Hmph. The corruption has grown, ranger, but so have you. You understand yourself.”

“I’m a better fighter than I was,” Vex promises, and the werewolf gives an approving growl.

“You are more than you were. We are more than we are. Too much of this sickness, hmph. And you return to fight it.”

_ “We  _ return to fight it,” Grog yells into the conversation. Two of the tree guys get roots around his arms but he  **_pushes_ ** his body, snaps them like weak string. Didn’t know bones could stretch like these guys are stretching them, but hey, you learn something new all the time.

“To kill it,” Vex says, stringing an arrow. It lands right in an eye socket. Grog cheers.

The others are fighting too, scattered around like they are. His and Keyleth’s formation held up right until they found the bad guys, which is all Grog really hoped for anyway. Like, yeah, Percy could get hit by a weird rib-crossbow bolt thing. But he’s not gonna get hit  _ by himself,  _ you know?

There’s no end to them, randomly emerging from the trees in twos and threes. Grog knows, somewhere in his gut, that there’s not gonna  _ be  _ an end to them until they beat whatever’s at the heart of it all.

But for a few minutes, before Vex  **_inhales_ ** and opens her glowing eyes and the water in the rivers all goes completely still, it’s just all of them  _ plus  _ werewolves in a great fucking battle.

\---

Vex wants to cross the river. She crosses the river. Vex wants the rest of them with her. They cross the river too. And the next river. And the next river.

It would be funny, if the stillness of the water didn’t mean the werewolves had to change tactics and rip Saundor’s creatures apart instead of hurling them into the current. It’s still funny, if you tilt your head and squint, ignore the sense of rot and sickness and the gore splattered across the field of battle.

But Vex breathes in and tastes it on the air for true, no memory, no nightmare. The smell of this part of the Feywild is a lingering thing, blurring the line between senses. It’s the squish of decay between her fingers, it’s Saundor’s voice in her ear, whispering praise and condemnation. 

_ Sweet, broken Vex’ahlia,  _ he sighs.  _ Miserly with your heart, come home, return to me. Give it to me. _

When they reach his tree, the air sticky with humidity and heavy with the scent of dying things, the gap in the trunk is wide and purposeful. And she can feel it, through all the churning disgust, all her anger, she can feel it. A buzzing in her fingertips. Her knife.

“Lovely Vex’ahlia,” Saundor croons, drifting down from the branches. “You return to me at last.”

“You knew I would. I want my knife.”

“I want your heart,” he says, just as he always has. “We can make a deal.”

“It’s not on the table, and it’s  _ my knife.  _ You’re giving it back to me.” Vex is calm. Vex is breathing. In her hands, her arms, her shoulders, the buzzing spreads.

The air stirs around them, Percy squinting in the gloom and Vax melting into it, the glint of Pike’s armor reflecting on Grog’s axe, Keyleth’s hands wreathed in fire, Scanlan’s gaze a flaying thing.

“The knife is our connection, dear,  _ sweet  _ Vex,” he growls. His eyes glow in a way that should be alien and unreadable, but she knows that rage in them well enough. “You’ll have to pull it from my chest, lovely,  _ broken—” _

An arrow splits the air, thudding into his shoulder. 

**“I will,”** Vex snarls, eyes glowing a steadfast glow.

\---

Here is what happens: Vex remembers the world. That people are out there, crying out and being met with nothing but silence. That they are afraid. That they are  _ lost. _

(Vex’ahlia is the ranger. Vex’ahlia is the kind hunter, returning caravans to their winding paths. Vex’ahlia is the slayer of things that stalk in the shadows, the protector of wanderers, the furious, starving spark of hope that says it is  _ not  _ over, nothing is  _ ever  _ over until you have  _ survived it.) _

The world is lost. Her brother at her back, her friends with her—Vex is  _ not. _

Saundor is sickness, is artifice, has weaponized disconnect and solitude. He has stood hundreds of years, drawing creatures great and small into his influence and molding them and tricking them and lying to them. He is ancient. He is a master of his craft.

He is absolutely no fucking match for her.

When Vex pulls the knife from his corpse, liquefying on the ground, she’s hard pressed to feel anything but victory. It feels  _ right,  _ something clicking into place in that other part of her. The knife is a tool, the knife is  _ her  _ tool, the knife means  _ you will not kill me.  _ The knife means  _ you will be survived. _

The world without the gods grows darker and more confused, more lost. She’s certain of it even from the Feywild, a dozen steps to the side of the rest of things. But when they emerge from the trunk of Saundor’s tree, the perpetual twilight is beginning to break through the canopy. Already the forest is blooming, devouring its dead flesh and growing up with a better soil.

Artagan unfolds from a soft shadow, gives her a smile that’s all sharp teeth.

\---

When Vex’s... friend... comes out of the middling dark, Percy nearly shoots him in the face. He doesn’t do it—he has  _ some  _ restraint, thank you very much—but he tenses. Of all the interesting parts of the Feywild, the fey might be one of the most interesting. He is  _ definitely  _ one of the most dangerous. 

He can see it, around the edges of red hair and exaggerated expressions. Clockwork shadows, ticking on their own timetables, half a dozen plans in progress at any given moment. Yes, Artagan is  _ very  _ dangerous.

And he is looking at Vex like he knows her, like he understands her. The last archfey that looked at Vex like that, Percy  _ did  _ end up shooting a few times. He wants to point Artagan in that direction, let him drink in the sight of the body, just to set the terms of the interaction. Unfortunately, the opportunity doesn’t present itself.

Artagan doesn’t understand Vex anyway, though, knows her even less than Percy does after their short acquaintance, because he says, “You could stay. You could be a warden of these lands. It’s quite the influential position.”

She’s shaking her head even before he finishes speaking, the twilight shining on her hair, the ghost of it around her eyes. “There’s too much that needs doing,” she says, and Percy can feel the conviction in her words. “People need us over there.”

The archfey smiles again, slanted, and this time he vanishes in a bright shower of green sparks that leave them all blinking away spots. By the time Percy’s vision clears, they’re no longer in the Feywild at all.

It’s the clearing by the tavern, where they’d first separated. He supposes it makes a certain kind of sense, if you’re entirely sentimental. How fitting, to be returned to their starting point, changed as they all are. 

He opens his mouth to say it, when a voice in his head sends him stumbling.

_ Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the third,  _ his sister says, iron-cold and stone-strong.  _ Come home. Help us. _

He hasn’t heard her speak in years. The wind blows through the clearing, rattling the branches something awful. Grog’s hand is on his shoulder, he thinks it’s Grog, nobody else has hands that size. He’s saying something, but Percy can’t understand him. His sister is saying his name.

\---

“Percival,” she says, “Brother, you are needed. An issue has arisen that requires your...  _ unique _ expertise.”

And the ruler of Whitestone looks from the window of her tower down, down to her city where a hazy smoke has settled over the structures she has worked so hard to build. The cloud twists, independent of the wind, and into a sensible handkerchief Cassandra de Rolo coughs a unsettlingly gray-green globule of mucus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there everybody! plot!  
> thanks for picking this fic up, whether you’ve been reading it since 2017 or just got into it today! it’s very much the longest i’ve ever tried to write, and i hope that it’s still engaging! i know this chapter had a lot of talking about combat without actually writing combat, but i just wanted to keep it moving; i hope it was still fun! next time, the percy interlude (which i had mostly done before ever getting to this point in the story - there are scenes that haven’t changed since i first drafted the outline for this fic lol)  
> leave a comment and let me know what you think! i really love them :)


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